October 15, 1925: Walter Johnson's Rainy Last Stand

Walter Johnson

October 15, 1925, 100 years ago: The World Series comes to a soggy end at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. It is one of the rare major league sports finals that is better remembered for the losing side, or for someone on it.

In the American League, the Washington Senators, winners of the previous season's World Series, won the Pennant again, by 8 1/2 games over the resurgent Philadelphia Athletics, getting into their 1st Pennant race in 11 years. Bucky Harris, their 28-year-old 2nd baseman and "Boy Manager," led a team highlighted by Walter Johnson, the "Big Train," one of the greatest pitchers who ever lived. The winningest pitcher in American League history finally became a World Series hero the year before, pitching innings 9 through 12 of Game 7 against the New York Giants.

The New York Yankees, who the Senators had edged the season before, and had won the previous 3 Pennants, fell apart: Babe Ruth developed a mysterious illness in Spring Training that kept him out for a month and a half, and several other established stars simply stopped hitting. They would be replaced by new players who would lead a new dynasty starting the next season, including Lou Gehrig.

In the National League, the Giants' 4-year run as Pennant winners came to an end, as they finished 8 1/2 games ahead of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Only pitcher Charles "Babe" Adams, now 43 but a rookie on their 1909 World Series winners, remained on that team. Their hitting stars included slick-fielding 3rd baseman Harold "Pie" Traynor, right fielder Hazen "Kiki" Cuyler, and speedy center fielder Max Carey, who was not well-known for his nickname, although it was "Scoops," which suggests he was a very good fielder.

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October 7, 1925: Game 1 was played at Forbes Field. a Wednesday. Johnson started for the Senators, and he was aided by a home run by Joe Harris (no relation to Bucky), as the Senators win, 4-1. The only Pirate run came on a home run by Traynor. In the 5th inning, Peckinpaugh made an error, but it didn't amount to anything.

Late in the game, word reached the ballpark of the death that day of Christy Mathewson, the star pitcher for the Giants in the 1900s and 1910s. A series of lung ailments led to his death at the age of 45. The flag at Forbes Field was lowered to half-staff, and it remained so there and at Griffith Stadium in opposing Washington for the remainder of the Series. The Commissioner of Baseball, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, orders that black armbands be applied to both teams' uniforms, even though Mathewson had never been involved with either of the teams playing.

October 8, 1925: Game 2 was played at Forbes Field. Home runs were hit in the 2nd by the Senators' Joe Judge and in the 4th by the Pirates' Glenn Wright. In the 8th, Peckinpaugh made an error that did end up mattering, which that led to a home run by Cuyler. He made another error later in the inning, which did not matter. The Senators loaded the bases with nobody out in the top of the 9th, but they only got 1 run home, and the Senators won, 3-2. The Series was tied going to Washington.

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October 10, 1925: Game 3 was played at Griffith Stadium. Peckinpaugh made his 4th error of the Series in the 6th, which led to an unearned run. Joe Harris singled home a run to put the Senators up 4-3 in the bottom of the 7th.

In the 8th, Earl Smith hit a drive to right-center field. Sam Rice leapt for it, and fell into the temporary stands that had been constructed. For a moment, a World Series crowd went silent, not knowing what had happened. Rice stood up, and held up the ball, indicating that he had made the catch. The umpires ruled the catch legal, and the Senators hung on to win, going up 2-1.

Sam Rice

Edgar Charles Rice (one of his minor-league managers changed his name to "Sam") is one of several great players virtually forgotten because their team no longer exists in its current form: They became the Minnesota Twins in 1961. And don't look for his retired uniform number anywhere: While he did last in the major leagues until 1934 and did wear numbers, none is retired for him, anywhere. If one was -- he wore 2 for the Senators in 1931 and 22 for them in 1932 and '33 -- he might be better remembered.

He might also be better remembered if he'd gotten into the 3,000 Hit Club. Instead, he fell just short: He collected 2,987 hits, the closest any player has gotten to 3,000 without getting it. (Unless you count Stan Ross, the Bernie Mac character in Mr. 3000.)

Rice later said, "The truth of the matter is, I did not even know how many hits I had. A couple of years after I quit, (Senators owner) Clark Griffith told me about it, and asked me if I'd care to have a comeback with the Senators and pick up those 13 hits. But I was out of shape, and didn't want to go through all that would have been necessary to make the effort. Nowadays, with radio and television announcers spouting records every time a player comes to bat, I would have known about my hits and probably would have stayed to make 3,000 of them."

He had a .322 lifetime batting average, a 112 OPS+, 498 doubles, 184 triples, and 351 stolen bases. He is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. But, today, when he is remembered at all, he is remembered for his 1925 World Series catch. Too bad there's no film of it: While a highlight film did capture some action in that Series, the catch is not part of it.

Also on October 10, the football team of the Olympic Club of San Francisco traveled across San Francisco Bay, and beat the University of California 15-0, in front of a crowd of 50,000 at California Memorial Stadium in Berkeley.

This ended a 50-game unbeaten streak for the Golden Bears, who had been 46-0-4. They hadn't lost since November 27, 1919, away to the University of Washington. The stadium was nicknamed "The House That Andy Built," as head coach Andy Smith made the team so good, ticket receipts alone covered the $1.4 million cost in 1923. It was seriously renovated in 2012.

Coaching took a severe toll on Smith, who went just 6-3 with Cal in 1925. On a visit to Philadelphia, where he had coached the University of Pennsylvania from 1909 to 1912, he was hospitalized with pneumonia, and died on January 8, 1926, only 49 years old. His career coaching record was 116-32-13, including 74-16-7 at Cal.

Also on this day, James Buchanan Duke died at his mansion at 1 East 78th Street, on 5th Avenue across from Central Park in New York. He was 68. "Buck" Duke is essentially the father of the American cigarette industry, and is thus responsible for the deaths of millions of people.

He's also responsible for the Duke Endowment, which contributed $40 million after his death (about $594 million in today's money) to Trinity College in his hometown of Durham, North Carolina. In his memory, it was renamed Duke University. So he's also responsible, if rather indirectly, for Coach K and the Cameron Crazies.

The James B. Duke House now hosts the New York University Institute of Fine Arts.

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October 11, 1925: Game 4 was played at Griffith Stadium. Leon "Goose" Goslin, the greatest player ever to come from South Jersey -- he's in the Hall of Fame, and, as of the end of the 2025 regular season, Mike Trout does not yet have the career stats to get in -- and Joe Harris hit home runs. Johnson needed no more than that, as he pitched a 6-hit shutout. The Senators won, 4-0, and went up 3-1. Just 1 more win to go.

Washington baseball would not find that 1 more win for another 94 years.

On the same day, having already played some minor and semi-pro teams, the New York Giants football team plays its 1st game against an actual NFL team, although it's not one that most modern fans will recognize. At the Cycledrome in Providence, Rhode Island, a stadium built for bicycle racing (a big sport in the Roaring Twenties), they lose 14-0 to the Providence Steam Roller.

This team, officially having no S on the end, was no pushover, and deserves to be remembered today: It will win the NFL Championship in 1928 (73 years before the Patriots will win New England’s next NFL title), and host the NFL’s first night game in 1930 (5 years before Major League Baseball allows games to be played under lights), before the Great Depression put it out of business in 1931.

Although the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Providence Bruins are at the highest minor-league levels in their respective sports, the State of Rhode Island has never had another major league sports team: The closest they've come since is the Patriots, who since 1971 have played in stadiums in Foxboro, Massachusetts, 10 miles from the State Line, and closer to Kennedy Square in Providence than to Downtown Crossing in Boston.

Also on this day, Elmore John Leonard Jr. was born in New Orleans, but grew up in Detroit and was a hard-core Tigers fan. Or, perhaps I should say, "hard-boiled," as he was the writer of hard-boiled crime fiction.

Among his works that got turned into movies are Hombre (a Paul Newman film), 3:10 to Yuma
(made with Glenn Ford and Van Heflin in 1957, and Russell Crowe and Christian Bale in 2007), Mr. Majestyk (starring Charles Bronson), Get Shorty (with John Travolta), Out of Sight (in which George Clooney is a thief fooling around with the cop trying to catch him, played by Jennifer Lopez), and Rum Punch (which became the Quentin Tarantino film Jackie Brown starring Pam Grier). He is also responsible for the story that became the TV series Justified. He died in 2013.

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October 12, 1925: The Senators wanted to wrap the Series up at home in Game 5. But the Pirates took a 2-1 lead in the 3rd, a 4-2 lead in the 7th, and won, 6-3, despite a 3rd homer in the Series by Joe Harris. Peckinpaugh made an error in the 6th inning, his 5th of the Series.

October 13, 1925: Game 6 was played back in Pittsburgh. Goslin hit a home run in the 1st inning, and the Senators made it 2-0 in the 2nd. But the Pirates tied the game in the 3rd, and Eddie Moore hit a home run in the 5th, giving the Pirates a 3-2 lead the held to the end, tying the Series. Peckinpaugh made his 6th error of the Series in the 7th inning.

Also on this day, Leonard Alfred Schneider was born in Mineola, Long Island, New York. We knew him as Lenny Bruce. According to sportswriter Dick Schaap, who collaborated with Lenny on his book Stamp Help Out!, Lenny attended only 1 Major League Baseball game in his short life (he died from drugs on August 3, 1966). It was as Schaap's guest, as a birthday present. It was October 13, 1960, and it was Game 7 of the World Series, the Bill Mazeroski Game, another World Series that the Pirates won in improbable fashion. Lenny wasn't a baseball fan, but he told Schaap he liked the drama.

Also on this day, Margaret Hilda Roberts was born in Grantham, Lincolnshire, England. How about that: Lenny Bruce and Margaret Thatcher were born on the exact same day. He didn't live long enough to have heard of her. If he had, with his sick sense of humor, I suspect there would have been a few jokes about her sex life (possibly suggesting that she had none), and about Bobby Sands (possibly, "For letting him starve, she can eat me!") and the Brighton Bombing.

One thing's for sure: In serving as Prime Minister of Britain, the 1st woman to do so, from 1979 to 1990, "The Iron Lady" treated all English soccer fans as if they were hooligans. She is widely believed to have been involved in the cover-up of the police's actions, both the negligent ones and the intentionally harmful ones, at the Hillsborough Stadium Disaster on April 15, 1989.

When her friend and fellow 1980s conservative icon, Ronald Reagan, died in 2004, most of his political opponents maintained a respectful silence. When the Iron Bitch died in 2013, a majority of Great Britain cheered, and was more than willing to say what a horrible person she was.

October 14, 1925: Game 7 was supposed to be played at Forbes Field, but the game was called off due to rain. They would have to try again tomorrow.

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October 15, 1925: A steady downpour, continuing from the day before into this day, has left the field at Forbes Field a muddy mess, as Game 7 of the World Series is scheduled to be played. The weather forecast suggested rain for the next 3 days for both cities involved, Pittsburgh and Washington. So moving the game to Washington would have been pointless, and Commissioner Landis was anxious to get it over with. So, they would play through the rain.

I've never seen film of this game. I don't even know if any survives, although YouTube has footage from earlier in the Series, and of the Game 7s of 1924 and 1926. Maybe the film crews didn't want to risk getting electrocuted in the rain. At any rate, all we have to go on for the inclement weather are news reports.

On August 8, 2025, as commemorations for the 100th Anniversary of this Series began, I saw a photograph of a rather dubious method of drying the infield: Dousing it with gasoline and setting it on fire.

This insane tactic actually happened. It wasn't the only time, either.

But it would have been just plain wrong to play if the rain were as bad as what Philadelphia and Tampa Bay faced when Game 5 of the 2008 Series was suspended. There was a 6-day delay due to rain in 1911, and there were 3-day delays in 1962 and 1975. It could have been done again.

It was a short day for Pirate starter Vic Aldridge: 3 walks and 2 hits‚ and he was out of there with just 1 out in the 1st. Walter Johnson took a 4-0 lead to the mound. In what became known as "Johnson's Last Stand," the Bucs clobbered the 38-year-old Big Train for 15 hits‚ good for 24 total bases. Max Carey's 4-for-5 gave him a Series-high batting average of .458.

The Senators made the most of 7 hits‚ scoring 7 runs. But in the bottom of the 7th, Eddie Moore led off with a grounder to short, and Peckinpaugh made his 7th error. Carey doubled the run home. Cuyler bunted Carey over to 3rd base. Clyde Barnhart grounded out, and Carey couldn't score. But Traynor hit a triple down the right-field line, and that scored Carey. Traynor tried to stretch it into an inside-the-park home run, but was thrown out at the plate.

In the top of the 8th, Peckinpaugh hit a home run‚ the 12th homer of the Series by both teams combined‚ then a Series record, despite Forbes Field and Washington's Griffith Stadium both having some of the most distant fences in the game. That made it 7-6 Senators.

With the rain still coming down, Johnson got the 1st 2 outs in the bottom of the 8th. But Earl Smith doubled, and Pirate manager Owen "Donie" Bush sent Emil Yde (that's "EE-dee"), normally a pitcher, in to pinch-run for him. Johnson walked Moore. Carey grounded to short, and Peckinpaugh tried to turn a force play at 2nd. But he made a bad throw, his 8th error. The bases were loaded, and Cuyler cleared them with a double down the right field line. Red Oldham, in relief of Ray Kremer, got the Senators out 1-2-3 in the 9th, and the Pirates were 9-7 victors.

Roger Peckinpaugh

They became the 1st team to come from 3 games to 1 down to win a World Series. They would also be the 3rd and the 4th, in 1971 and 1979, respectively, both times against the Baltimore Orioles. The 2nd would be the 1958 Yankees, against the Milwaukee Braves.

Peckinpaugh's 8 errors are still a record for a single World Series. The rest of the Senators combined only made 1 error in the 7 games.

In the next day's New York Times, James Harrison wrote, "In a grave of mud was buried Walter Johnson's ambition to join the select panel of pitchers who have won three victories in one World Series. With mud shackling his ankles and water running down his neck, the grand old man of baseball succumbed to weariness, a sore leg, wretched support and the most miserable weather conditions that ever confronted a pitcher."

The last surviving member of the 1925 Pirates was shortstop Glenn Wright, who lived until 1984.